Tuesday, February 22, 2011

How consumers' wine preferences mesh with the preferences of other consumers with similar taste sensitivity will be determined at a pioneering tasting program in the 9th Annual Pinot Noir Summit February 26 at the San Francisco Hilton. "By establishing the TasteSQ (http://www.tastesq.com/) of the participants, we can easily show how your TasteSQ influences your Pinot Noir syle preferences and then how that matches with other people with a similar sensitivity," said Tim Hanni, MW, who created the Consumer Wine Preference format with Cornell's Virginia Utermohlen, M.D. "For the first time they'll be able to tell which wines are best suited to which groups of tasters."

How it works: the experts and the consumers will be assessed by Hanni for their Taste SQ (Sensitivity Quotient) to determine if they are a Sweet, Hyper-sensitive, Sensitive or Tolerant taster. Their TasteSQ will be recorded on their ballot as they taste through the range of wines selected from the Pinot Noir Shootout and select their top three favorite wines. Hanni and Dr. Utermohlen, partners in TasteScience, will analyze the results by TasteSQ segments to demonstrate how differences in consumer preferences can be understood and explained by taste sensitivity. This information will be available with the overall results from the event.

Pinot Noir enthusiasts will taste 64 top Pinot Noirs blind, as well as attend wine workshops and tasting with winemakers and wine educators. The daylong program costs$125, with a portion going to Junior Achievement. For tickets, register at http://www.affairsofthevine.com/. For further information contact Barbara Drady, Affairs of the Vine, 707/874-1975 or barbara@affairsofthevine.com.